Near Earth Trojan

A pocket nova sits in a brilliant belt of emptiness
I need a lighthouse barometer to open that window
we mine colors from asteroids
carbon kisses, stone blossoms, iron strings, threaded water and symbol
a bright chalice of clouds circle ivy-like
and frame this story like a cube of cold becoming why 

Fold Here

Dig us
out of ourselves
Holes and hills
He and she

Karen, Kyle and Kennedy
Happen to be here one day
Happen to dig
Their bodies from hive wax
And shale cracks

I was alcohol once
I was clear

Ready Means Happy

Telling darling
please sincere
comic
seams to join
a glimpse
tales of a fetish near
arrested
incantation
ready for surreal
the struggle in a closet
time it will reveal

The Future is Space

We are on a white island born from mountains that emerged from the ocean floor and frozen slightly.
We drive to high places in cars that are never really cars; they are more like skateboards.
The snow is so high that I feel it on my chest. People have pitched their tents where it was infinitely arresting--endless sky and horizon. I could spend the rest of my life here.

So many people, whom I do not know, populate this place and they are my kin--white and brown. Something is happening--a build up of years, of scars culminating on this snow-settled tropical island.

In the late afternoon, I sit in my home which is a rundown trailer situation. Bits of wall and siding fall, but I have no shame in my poverty. It is only shelter. A couple appears. I do not know the man, but A redheaded woman accompanies him. She has been dead for some time. She is very friendly and wants to spend time with me because she regrets that she didn't when she was alive and I do too.

I call for my cousin because I do not want to miss the daylight and he arrives in two seconds. I am shocked at how impossible, yet absolute everything is and happens. I am unprepared for this. In the car, halfway down the snowy road, I jump out and slide down the snow in my slippers which continue to fall off without any cinderella grace.

I watch a sea of my family on an infinite horizon. They emerge from the doors of a church. My mother and her sister guide the mourning mass. I watch them head-on as they approach me.

Giving Thanks: A Eulogy for Lola (Grandma)

Mid-autumn I rise to the sound of wind in the maples. From what I believe to be my secure shelter, I look out the window to see that the leaves have changed. From flames of deep orange to faded marigold, sunlit foliage fills my room with a glow that protects me from the cold open sky.

But even in glory, our old companions fall.  Some beauty returns to the earth that has provided us with every need, like a selfless mother.  And as we endure the daily hustle and bustle, perpetually acting, making plans, making mistakes, and making amends; we occasionally, sometimes unexpectedly, bear witness to this cycle of change--the vibrance of a luminous sunset to the subtlety of dusk to dark. The tree becomes barren, exposed for us to see, yet restful and at peace with the dramas of the world. And even though our tree has lost a part of itself, in time and with patience, the leaves of the past nourish its roots and make space for new eager buds, preparing for splendor.

We are the tree that remains, so let us be watchful over this beautiful family and the bounty of life that sustains us.  As the winter comes quietly upon us, we can pray or we can meditate. We can regretfully think on all the things we did or did not say or do.  But the best thing we can do in the absence of Lola is to contribute to life on her behalf.  When we devote ourselves to selfless kindness, forgiveness, and compassion, her spirit lives freely among us.

When a Person Becomes a Place

Everyone must have a pocket this deep
Sewn tightly in each corner
Let me know this one by heart
Incise surrender
No crime so sparse

I paint my grandfather
To remember a pinhole
In his forehead

Profound ovals
Upheld by his jaw
I never knew him without wrinkles
Nor the name of his Spanish piano songs

I'll name one Paradiso
Unlike infernos
Drawn in the woodstove during blackouts
Caves in mind

Never full
Shells concave his face
Where barnacles and cancer
Evolve for his fingers landing the keys
Blank and sharp

Single is Nothing

We pause to see radical change
Endorse it every town we tinsel
A branch where math is sacred

Single is nothing
We hang on

Our ligaments
Wish we thought better
Organic chemistry, quantum physics, astrophysics and neuroscience
Permacultural meditation, galactic alignment
Salmon eggs and skeletons mantra
Hawks, bats, hummingbirds, and manta rays

Fictitious realms and societies
Unseen abstractions laughing

Cryptic illustration of all things combined
A whole body together

Subconscious interaction
Clairvoyance and intuition
Star power and amethyst rocks
Heart tremors

Slipping vessels aboard the solution--saline circulation
What does the hand mean, who do I signify?

A cellular chapel, a chapter unwritten
And what do you feel about death?

And how can you inhale this life without exhaling
How could we think without salt and light

Without clear and dark voyages and voyeurism
A radiant teaching embodied and broadcast

From an island where the sunflowers turn
To the child of the sun

Play peek-a-boo like cats and tomatoes
The nightshade purples and resonates from paragliders

Diaphragmatic flight surrenders to wind and creation--
an echo so shallow and hollow--

Unaware of this frequency of sails and photons
We pause on the road to see a mesa and a man-made lake
All insects prehistoric
and where words don't work